Power Outages Strike East Coast

fordp writes "CNN, CNBC and others are reporting that major power outages are happening just after 4:00PM EDT in New York, New Jersey, Detroit, Ottawa and Toronto, Toledo." There are reports of a Con Edison transformer on fire on 14th Street in NYC, and lots of people stuck in trains and elevators. CNN is reporting that it is, according to power officials, most likely not related to terrorism, because you know you were wondering. The Niagra Mohawk power grid is overloaded, which feeds electricity throughout the northeast U.S. and into Canada. Update: 08/14 21:06 GMT by P : The mayor said there was no fire, that it was black smoke brought on by an automatic shutdown because of the power grid failure.

Comments

On the other hand...

[caferace]

..You don't have to worry as much about port 135 being open.

Re:On the other hand...

[airrage]

Oh my gawd the sky is falling. Find that hottie and do her in the stairwell (pun intended). Tell you boss to f#$&-off. Piss on your computer. Hump the water-cooler. Punch all the buttons on the elevator.

The end is here. God bless you all.

Re:On the other hand...

[Jaeger]

We all know that this works -- just use sshnuke to exploit ssh1 vunerabilities, set the password to "zion", and then you can shut down power nodes 20 to 40.

Or was that just a movie?

And California?

[zifty]

And in other breaking news, a great chorus of laughter could be heard clear across the country, apparently originating from California.

Re:And California?

[tgrigsby]

Any thoughts on which governor will get recalled for this? Or will they decided that it was somehow caused by the Blaster worm infecting the computer systems of the power companies and go after M$ for producing laughable "security" into all versions of Windows.

And yeah, you can bet Davis is jumping up and down, pointing towards the east and yelling, "SEE? SEE? I TOLD YOU IT COULD HAPPEN TO ANYONE!!"

Re:Con Edison transformer NOT on fire

[Megaslow]

And we all know that black smoke streaming out of electrical equipment is perfectly normal.

Looks like California....

[irn_bru]

finally got that extra long extension cable rigged up....

Re:Blaster

[cbdavis]

I bet it is running on linux and the OS license
was revoked by SCO.

Tell the whole story please

[in7ane]

He also said that there was no grid overload, it was just being shut down for regular maintenance.

Re:Manhattan

[Lord_Dweomer]

"I'm dialed in through Verizon (wow. good network, right?) on a laptop, through a PBX with a battery backup. "

Do you suffer from anxiety attacks when you do not read/post to Slashdot for more than a day?

Whoops... sorry...

[doc_traig]

I always wondered what that wall switch was for and today I finally turned it off. My bad. After dinner I'll go turn it back on.

Re:Manhattan

[Mark Gordon]

You didn't get a UPS for your fish?

Re:Manhattan

[Horsey Fiddler]

I'm in California right now, near San Francisco. All power is on across Silicon Valley. Traffic lights are functioning normally, and the BART can't hold "hundreds of thousands" of people like the NYC subway system apparently can. I'm connected through an ethernet cable to the wall on a laptop, with the power adapter plugged in.

My tropical fish also live on electricity, but they are thankfully in no danger. Regardless, I'm going to freak out like everyone else.

Re:Con Edison transformer NOT on fire

[TopShelf]

And will it send out white smoke when power is restored, like the election of a new pope?

ps: checked out diaperdevil - very cool! As a father of 3 kids under 18 months, I think I'm going to have to place an order...

Re:Central Boston not affected

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I'm in Cambridge and our power is f

+++NO CARRIER+++

It happened at 4:11

[SpryGuy]

Didn't anyone notice the time the blackout happened? 4:11pm! That's 4-11! OH MY GOD! THE TERRORISTS WANT INFORMATION!

officals are looking...

[r00tarded]

for a terrorist who goes by the name 'Trinity'.

If the past is any indicator

[jhines]

there will be a baby boom next june.

Have fun folks

Re:WHAT IF THIS IS ANOTHER TERRORIST ATTACK?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh please, won't somebody think about the children!

Blah.

There is a building...

[MrChris007]

inside this building there is a level where no elevator can go and no stair can reach. This level is filled with doors. These doors lead to many places, hidden places, but one door is special. One door leads to the source...etc... Now that the power is out we have only five minutes to find the door on that floor.

Re:Manhattan

[elmegil]

With no power, my poor tropical fish have less than a few hours to live,

Get a straw and BLOW FOR THEIR LIVES, MAN!

Looting

[Spamhead]

Can somebody pick me up a TiVo when the looting begins? I'll pay for shipping.

Re:Central Boston not affected

[Zeinfeld]

FWIW, Seattle is OK, unaffected.

I just got reports from Rio de Janeiro, Paris and Casablanca and they are all unaffected. Baghdad is still out but that seems to be an independent cause.

Shutdown -r black_smoke

[carcosa30]

Every normal shutdown procedure should come complete with billowing clouds of black oily smoke.

Nothing to see here, move along.